Is Therapy For You?
You may be the sort of person who is driven to look for the next challenge, the next achievement, always striving to attain that ‘perfect’ outcome. Or maybe you feel driven to just be the best you can be at all times in all domains of your life - and you often achieve it!
Perhaps you are struggling to work out who you are or what your future holds, your perspective of yourself may have changed recently through a diagnosis, realisation of diversity or a change in your health or personal capacity.
But something isn’t flowing anymore - perhaps you feel stuck or overwhelmed. Staying afloat or making sense of life at the minute may feel frustratingly out of reach. Reaching out for help may be tough but this is a great opportunity to explore what you can learn and how you can move from here to a calmer, more regulated sense of self.
“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”
Chances are that you may have high internal expectations and have self-selected for environments where your friends and colleagues are also aiming high, so maybe you don’t see your achievements as particularly exceptional.
The idea of calling yourself a high achiever or claiming to be a ‘perfectionist’ might seem incongruent because you move the goalposts frequently, always aiming for better. Or maybe you’re just harshly critical of yourself when you think you don’t ‘hit the mark’. However it plays out, something about this cycle has become exhausting, frustrating or just isn’t producing the excellent results you’re used to anymore.
You may be experiencing Imposter Syndrome - starting to feel like a fraud, despite evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps you’re procrastinating, putting off work, conversations or problems that need solving because you fear a negative outcome or you don’t trust the end result will be ‘good enough’.
Where your perfectionist tendencies have enabled you to achieve in the past, perhaps now they’re trapping you in over-scrutiny, leading to overwhelm.
Asking for help may be excruciatingly difficult because you may believe you should manage this perfectly and without intervention from others.
“The problem with “everything” is that it ends up looking an awful lot like nothing: just one long haze of frantic activity, with all the meaning sheared away.”
What do you need?
Perhaps you’re feeling stretched too thin and desperately want a break but you know you love the drive and sense of achievement so slowing down would feel like giving up. Is this you?
You want more control and you imagine you ‘should’ be managing better - everyone else seems to! But ultimate control just doesn’t seem sustainable, maybe you wonder where you’re going wrong?
You’re looking for clarity about what the problem might be - why has life got harder, why do I feel less confident or capable than my colleagues or friends, why have I become so self-critical?
You’ve put off exploring therapy or alternative support but perhaps now you can feel the burnout edging closer and you’re ready to look more closely at what you can do to find some relief.
Now you’ve taken the first step of reaching out and you’re exploring options to get this resolved, to get back on track - maybe you’d like to learn new and valuable ways to live more contentedly and more successfully.
“Hard work is important. So are play and non-productivity. My worth is tied not to my productivity but to my existence. I am worthy of rest.”
Therapists are notoriously unpushy - we want to help but we want our clients to feel motivated and ready for change.
This doesn't mean you need to know what you want to change, or how - if you did you wouldn’t need my expertise!
But if you feel I am the right fit for you or you want to explore more about the benefits of therapy, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
What do you do now?
The first step if you want to explore therapy is to get in touch for a free initial 20 minute conversation to discuss what your needs are and see how I can help. Once we have established that I am a good fit for you we can book a first appointment and set a plan of how we might make your therapy sessions as effective as possible.
